Healthy Women: Understanding breast density
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) - In March of this year, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration began requiring that all states notify women about breast density after mammograms. Colorado was a state that already had those regulations in place and women here received letters of notification explaining they have dense breast tissue and what that means.
"About 40% of women overall have dense breast tissue," says Dr. Olga Mengin, medical director of breast imaging for UCHealth Memorial in Colorado Springs.
Dr. Mengin is also a board-certified radiologist. She says breast density is important for all women to understand when they get scanned.
"The risk of breast cancer is a little bit higher in women who have dense breast tissue," says Dr. Mengin. "You have to remember that dense breast tissue is actually what develops into breast cancer. If you have a higher ratio of these fiber glandular cells that make your tissue dense you have more of them to potentially form into cancer."
Dense breast tissue also makes it harder for radiologists to see the cancer on mammograms.
"I like to use my hand to explain breast density," says Dr. Mengin. "My fingers are like tissue that is not dense because there are gaps in between and the palm of my hand is like dense tissue, we can't see through it. So pretend this is breast cancer in the none dense tissue you can see a small cancer, whereas in the dense tissue, you can't see that small mass because it is masked by the dense tissue."
If your mammogram report says that you have dense breast tissue, talk with your healthcare provider about what this means for you.
Be sure that your doctor or nurse knows if there's anything in your medical history that increases your risk for breast cancer. Any woman who's already in a high-risk group, such as inherited gene mutations or a strong family history of breast cancer, should have an MRI along with their yearly mammogram.
